


evening talks.

by DictionaryWrites



Series: Patrician & Clerk [6]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Book: The Truth, Class Differences, Complicated Relationships, Emotionally Repressed, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Injury, Intimacy, M/M, Power Dynamics, Secret Relationship, Sharing a Bed, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-10-28 20:57:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17794622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: With Vetinari and Drumknott, even simple conversation can be a complicated two-step.Collection of vignettes.





	1. on fathers.

Once upon a time, Vetinari allowed for very little recreation. He would read in the evenings, when he retired to bed, taking in a few improving books while he might, but that was all. These days, he is all but _indulgent_ in the time he puts into little moments of recreation: into sparring, into playing Thud or chess, into doing these new morning crosswords in the Times, into… other things.

His mind works the better for it, he is almost frustrated to realize, allowed these moments to break away from its focused regime, and he almost resents that he spent so many years allowing himself nothing at all.

He is still an ascetic, that much is true: there is no need to go entirely mad.

But little fragments of pleasure, of distraction, here and there, have done him more good than ill.

He lies back on the bed, and he looks up at Drumknott, who is straddling his hips, his knees either side of Vetinari’s belly: Vetinari’s wrists are loosely clasped beneath Drumknott’s hands, and Vetinari is distantly aware of precisely how much stronger he is than Drumknott, how easy it would be to throw him off… He finds he doesn’t want to. He’s comfortable just like this.

“Did you grow up in Ankh-Morpork?” Drumknott asks softly.

He is bored, as of recent, and perhaps this is why he has the confidence to be quite so interrogative: perhaps, it is simply because he has finally permitted himself new freedoms, where Vetinari is concerned, allowed himself to lie beside him in bed, share his bedroom, allow himself to reach out to touch him.

He wouldn’t, before.

And try as Vetinari might, to say without saying, without _ordering_ , it had been so difficult to _get_ him to… But he does, now. He touches Vetinari; he asks him questions. Yesterday, he had asked him about Wuffles: where had the dog come from, why had he picked him, how old was he? Had he other dogs, before him? Only ever dogs? The day before, it had been his robe: when did you first start to dress like that, what gave you the idea, is it comfortable, is it warm? Do you enjoy it?

Always the ritual, like so: they lie in Vetinari’s bed, before they lie down to sleep for the night, and Drumknott presses himself as close to Vetinari’s body as he can, as he dares, without hurting his injury. Wuffles sleeps on the end of the bed, between their ankles.

There is a limit to how much Vetinari will permit Drumknott to work his full hours, as he heals from the injury to his shoulder, and like so, Vetinari can see it: the harsh gash still has its stitches in, although the bandage has come away, now. The stiches will need to be taken out in three days, and thus will Drumknott simply have his new scar: a stab wound, earned in Vetinari’s service. Vetinari will actually allow him to get _dressed_ in the mornings, but he’ll give him another few days before he can return to work.

He needs it.

“I was born in Ankh-Morpork,” Vetinari answers. “My mother died six months or so after I was born… My father raised me, but when I was seven, he was killed by a carthorse. Very clever little assassination, I always felt. When Bobbi came for me, she took me home to Pseudopolis, and I lived there until I began school at the Assassins’ Guild.”

“Tell me about him,” Drumknott says. “Your father.” Vetinari hasn’t asked him any questions yet, himself. They’ve had their little pieces of small talk, over five years working together, but… But these are deeper than small talk, these questions, and he knows it: he hasn’t asked any of his own. Does Drumknott want him to? It’s difficult to tell, looking at his face.

“If you tell me about yours,” Vetinari says. Drumknott’s expression doesn’t change.

“Alright,” he assents.

“His name was Vincenzo. He was a merchant: he traded in apothecary ingredients especially, and was a natural herbalist. I raised a tolerance to no small amount of poisons in my childhood, much to the chagrin of my more playful classmates when I began at the Assassins’ Guild.”  He stops, and he looks up at Drumknott expectantly. Drumknott’s glasses have been set on the bedside table: he doesn’t need them, and they don’t pretend that he does, here, together.

“His name was Jasper. He owned a grocer’s, and in the day-time, he was jovial, and cheerful, and he knew everybody’s name, and everybody’s order before they asked for it. He was thoughtful, and people thought him sweet. He was a drunk, and he gambled.” Vetinari knows this, of course. He had had Drumknott carefully researched and vetted before he’d ever entered Vetinari’s service, but that isn’t the same, he doesn’t think, as Drumknott _telling_ him these things.

Vetinari has not told anyone these things, not for a long, long time. Not since he was a young man, on the Grand Sneer, and he had fallen so easily into step with Margolotta – and even then, they hadn’t really _shared_ too much with one another, not about their lives, their pasts. Not like this, a mutual interrogation.

“He taught me to play Thud, and to play chess. He liked games, but he was terrible at them. No sense of strategy, and he played too impulsively wasn’t careful enough: it was Bobbi that taught me to win. He was tall. My height, I believe. He had a longer beard than mine, but similar features, according to Aunt Bobbi.” This is what Vetinari has taught Drumknott, he supposes, in the time he has been in his service: information for information, a chit for a chit. An implication here, a trade there…

“He wanted me to play sports,” Drumknott says. He leans back drawing his hands away from Vetinari’s wrist, but he doesn’t move from his lap, and Vetinari sits up to meet him, his hands lingering on Drumknott’s hips as he shifts back, to lean against the headboard. Drumknott is a warm weight in his lap, and Vetinari lets his fingers play underneath his open pyjama shirt, dragging over his sides. “I didn’t want to. I didn’t like sports: I spend my days moving between the libraries at the various guilds, until I settled on the one at UU. He was a big man. A little under six feet, but he was broad-shouldered, and hulking in the way some grocers are. People thought he looked jolly. I always thought he looked rather like a gorilla. Redheaded, thick stubble. Fists like mutton.”

“Big?”

“Cheap and tough.” Vetinari’s hands drag up a little higher, the heels of his hands resting on the slight jut of bone that emphasises Drumknott’s hip, and he tightens his grip, feeling the soft flesh at his sides, at his belly, beneath his fingers and thumbs.

But he doesn’t want to stop.

He’s as curious as Drumknott is, if not more so.

“It was the Alchemists’ Guild that wanted him dead,” Vetinari says. “That time. I saw it before he did, saw a fellow sprinkle something under the horse’s nose, but he wasn’t paying attention. Stupid of him.”

“Wendy and I used to share a room at night,” Drumknott says, and his gaze is far away as his hands settle loosely over Vetinari’s wrists, as if wanting to make sure he keeps his hands on Drumknott’s skin. His eyes are down, in the direction of Vetinari’s chest instead of his eyes, and Vetinari lets his own focus stray over Drumknott’s chest, his belly, which are each littered with scars. Not just the new one, no: there are burns, and there are ragged marks where wounds never healed correctly. One is where the rib broke and pierced the skin, once upon a time, and Vetinari doesn’t trace it with his fingers. “He used to dip his head into the room to see if we were still asleep. I was better at pretending than she was, but I always stood up before he could have a real go at her.”

“Where was your mother?” Drumknott’s gaze flicks up to meet his, even and still. This breaks the pattern, Vetinari is aware: now that he has asked the question, they are no longer playing quid pro quo.

“She drank too,” Drumknott says, after a long pause. “She would usually be asleep, in a stupor, before he came home of an evening. He wouldn’t bother her, then. No fun in that, I suppose.”

Vetinari leans back slightly, and he feels a sickly-sticky anger burn in his belly. He had always thought, from the way Drumknott spoke about her, that Miriam Drumknott had been as much of a victim as her children had been, but that is… _Different_. His mental image, before, had comprised of a battered woman, unable to protect her children once exhausted, but this isn’t the same at all.

“You and your sister served, I suppose, as sacrificial lambs, left waiting on the altar,” Vetinari says quietly, darkly, and Drumknott smiles at him, reaching out and absently drawing his fingers through Vetinari’s hair. His fingers are cold, but Vetinari doesn’t mind.

“She shouldn’t have done it,” he agrees sagely, with that quiet wisdom he sometimes has, so beyond his years. “But I don’t blame her.”

“You would step in,” Vetinari says quietly, “for Wendy. How many years older than you is she?”

“Five,” Drumknott says. Vetinari exhales, and he lets his grip tighten slightly on Drumknott’s hips, drawing him closer, so that their mouths are almost touching. They don’t kiss, but Drumknott cups his cheek, curls his hands once more in Vetinari’s hair. “It is the moral obligation of the strong to protect the weak,” he says quietly. He says it as if he’s quoting someone: he’s quoting Vetinari, albeit paraphrased, and Vetinari raises his head slightly as Drumknott’s thumb comes down to play over his chin.

“You weren’t _strong_ ,” Vetinari says. “You were a boy.”

“And now, I’m a man,” Drumknott says simply, with a shrug of his shoulders. “My father died in pain, alone, on our doorstep, and next to no one cared. And the universe turns on and on.”

“Tell me about the University,” Vetinari says, and Drumknott tilts his head slightly, raising his eyebrows. His expression is serene, and his body is relaxed against Vetinari’s, as chilly as it is compared to his own.

“I went to the Unseen University Library whenever I could, since I was seven or so,” Drumknott says, and Vetinari allows his hands to slide up beneath the back of his pyjama shirt, playing circles on his back. He pretends he doesn’t feel the scrapes and cuts and uneven skin there, but he doesn’t know if Drumknott even notices, if he lets himself notice. Vimes, he’d said, had been angry, when he’d seen Drumknott with his shirt unbuttoned, had demanded if all this was as a result of Vetinari’s service. “I got on well with the Librarian – he was Horace Worblehat then. Did you ever meet him?”

“No,” Vetinari says. “No, I don’t believe so.”

“He was a nice man,” Drumknott says. “I remember him as… He was a stout man, short, wore burnished red robes. He never wore his hat, because one of the books would inevitably steal it off him if he wore it into the stacks, and he had wispy red hair that was thinning a great deal on the top. He used to have a soft, gentle voice, like molten honey. Naturally soothing. He was such a shy, reserved little man. You know, none of the wizards remember what his name was. None of them except Rincewind, I think. But the Librarian is still kind, still soothing, still gentle. Just… different.” There’s a quiet melancholy in Drumknott’s voice, but it’s distant, and Vetinari leans forward, pressing a kiss to Drumknott’s chest, hearing him exhale.

“Go on,” Vetinari murmurs against his sternum.

“The Library always liked me,” Drumknott says quietly. “I had a librarian’s air, Doctor Worblehat used to say – they trusted that. None of them bothered trying to lead me astray when I was a little boy, or to trick me into the maze in the stacks, not until I was older, and by that time, I knew not to listen to them. I started school when I was eleven, but I didn’t board until I was thirteen.”

“Why?”

“I did the books for the shop, and they couldn’t do without me,” Drumknott says, and Vetinari sets his jaw. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” Vetinari asks, his innocence as false as anything, and Drumknott looks down at him, his expression quietly pleading. Vetinari is used to Ankh-Morpork, city of a thousand injustices, but they aren’t usually in his bed, speaking softly and indulgently, all apparently forgiven, and undeserving.

“Don’t,” Drumknott says softly. “They didn’t—”

“You were _eleven,_ then _twelve_ ,” Vetinari says. “Wendy was, what, sixteen, seventeen? Miriam had run that grocer’s for _years_ , and they couldn’t do the accounts themselves?”

“ _Don’t_ , my lord,” Drumknott repeats. “Please.”

“Don’t call me that,” Vetinari replies. “Please.”

“It would be improper of me to—” Vetinari looks at him, and Drumknott exhales, his shoulders loosening. “It feels… wrong. I know you want me to. It merely feels as if it would be a liberty.”

“There is no liberty in my bed,” Vetinari murmurs. “Liberty is quite banned. You shall call me Havelock, Rufus, and there will be no choice about it.”

“Do you ever wish it was different?” Drumknott asks.

“Do I ever wish what was?” Vetinari replies blandly. Drumknott’s expression doesn’t change, and he looks down at Vetinari for a long few moments, his fingers playing at the nape of his neck. “What if I have you knighted?”

“No.”

“Made a Duke?”

“No.”

“Got you a peerage?”

“No. Answer _my_ question, please.” It isn’t an order. Drumknott doesn’t order him, even behind closed doors, even in the safety of their rooms, doesn’t make demands of him. He is unfailingly polite and self-effacing, and at times, Vetinari wishes he wouldn’t be, wishes that he wouldn’t be quite so afraid of the space he takes up…

“No,” he says finally. “I don’t wish for things, least of all things that can’t be. I was rather trained out of the habit when I was a child.” Drumknott’s face remains expressionless, but Vetinari can see the small cues beneath, just as Drumknott can see through his own mask when it is worn: he sees the slight downturn of Drumknott’s lips, the twitch at the corner of his eye. “I’m sorry.”

“It isn’t your fault,” Drumknott says quietly. “There are… higher concerns. I merely wish… if wish I might?”

“Wish away, Rufus,” Vetinari murmurs, and he smiles when Drumknott does, but it is a small thing, soft and sad. If only it _were_ different – if he was not Patrician, if Drumknott wasn’t his clerk, if the river ran with white whine in summer and red in the winter, and if only the sky were made of caramel and taffeta. _Wishes_. Vetinari doesn’t wish. But he listens to Drumknott’s, and those that he can, he grants.

“I merely wish I had your composure,” Drumknott says. “I wish I could call you by your forename and not… I am sorry. I will, when I can.”

“I know, Rufus,” Vetinari murmurs, dragging his fingertips down Drumknott’s back and watching his eyes flutter closed for a moment, watching him lean back into his hands. “Go on. Please.”

“I went to the Library at my weekends, on my days off,” Drumknott says quietly. “I was sixteen when Ridcully took over as Archchancellor.”

“Do you know him well?” Vetinari asks. “He always asks after you, I’ve noticed. Ordinarily when you’re out of the room.”

“He’s a kind man,” Drumknott says softly. “Like you. One wouldn’t know it at first glance. Too many layers of artifice in the way. He wanted me to be a wizard, when I left school. Said that if I held my own in the Library, spells would be no match. I think he just liked that I brushed my teeth regularly and knew my left from my right.”

“Admirable qualities in a young wizard, if not common ones,” Vetinari muses. “You’re… You seem sad.” It sounds clumsy, childish, to say it like that, and yet, how else can he say it? How else might he brook the conversation?

“Yes,” Drumknott agrees serenely. “Sorry.”

“Quite alright.”

“I want to sleep here,” Drumknott says. “If that’s alright.” He doesn’t mean in Vetinari’s bed, and Vetinari nods, blows out the candle and lies back. Drumknott blankets his chest, his face against Vetinari’s chest, and Vetinari draws the covers over them, that they might lie in the dark. He curls his fingers through Drumknott’s hair.

“I do wish,” he starts.

“Don’t lie to me,” Drumknott says quietly. “You don’t wish: you told me.”

“Then— it would be nice, in another world, if things could be different.”

“Yes,” Drumknott says. “Yes, I agree.”

 There are things one says, Vetinari muses, to a melancholy partner. One soothes them with the right words, or assurances of one’s affection, but neither seem appropriate here, and even if they were, he wouldn’t know how to phrase them. He has never used such language before: he is sure he doesn’t know how to begin.

There are limits to what they might say to one another, limits to what they might _do_ , and yet, oh, how he aches. He can feel Rufus’ heartbeat against his own, and he hears his own sigh, distant, as if from some distance away.

“Rufus,” he says softly.

“Mm?”

He says as much as he feels he _can_ say: “Sleep well.”

And yet Drumknott’s lips shift, and he feels the younger man smile as he relaxes. “Good night,” he says softly. Vetinari hears the slight pause, where he would have said Vetinari’s name, if he felt that he could. “You sleep well too.”


	2. on religion.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drumknott, Vetinari notices, has an unexpected item in amongst his jewellery.

Drumknott, Vetinari has noticed, has a small, wooden box. He hadn’t thought much of it, when first Drumknott had moved the bulk of his personal possessions into the room he and Vetinari now share together; Drumknott had set the box absently down on one of the bookshelves, and he had assumed it was some manner of keepsake.

It is currently resting on Vetinari’s desk, open, and Vetinari looks down at its contents, interested. The contents are relatively meagre: he sees the old pocket watch that had been his father’s, before Vetinari had bought him another; he sees two sets of neatly-made, gold-coloured cufflinks, which Drumknott will wear when he wears one of his non-work suits; he sees two plain tiepins. Vetinari makes the mental note to widen the sphere of Drumknott’s Hogswatch and birthday gifts to jewellery[1]: nothing audacious, no, but watch chains, perhaps, as well as tiepins and cufflinks. If he cares enough to keep them in a particular box, like this, he must have some fondness for them, and Vetinari knows Drumknott barely buys himself anything if he can’t absolutely justify it as a necessity, stationery being the glaring exception.

There is one item, however, that he has never seen Drumknott wear, and he reaches out, loosely drawing it up by its chain and examining the pendant that falls back into his palm. He recognises it, of course: his family had never been religious, but he’d become a Doctor of God Studies during his time at the guild, and he draws his thumb over the dark gold of it, feeling how heavy it is against his skin. Blind Io’s _deadknot_ , a twist of intersecting triangles, with a single eye at their centre.

The door opens, and Drumknott re-enters the room, setting a jug of hot water on the dressing table, putting a pot of tea on the other and setting out two cups. Vetinari inhales, taking in the scent of the steam as Drumknott allows the leaves to steep in the pot: it’s some tea made of mature leaves, he thinks, with the usual hint of ginger. Drumknott knows a lot about tea, and Vetinari is distantly aware that he thinks of it more in its medicinal capacity than as a thing that ought necessarily be pleasant to drink.

“Was this your mother’s?” Vetinari asks, and Drumknott glances to the pendant in his hand.

“Hm? Oh, no, that’s mine,” he says casually, drawing the back of his hand up to his mouth and yawning. He isn’t yet dressed: they’re travelling out of the city later on in the morning, to one of the duchies to talk through some shared elements of public policy, and Vetinari can see how tired he is. He’d slept ill, the night previous – one or two nightmares that had left him tossing and turning, and although they never bother him when he wakes again, they’d still disturbed his sleep.

“This is a symbol of Blind Io,” Vetinari says.

“Yes, that’s right,” Drumknott agrees.

“You…” Vetinari presses his lips loosely together, staring down at the symbol. He and Drumknott have been engaged in this… _relationship_ , for some five years now. It is true, that before now, they haven’t spoken as openly as they do now, to one another: the attack by Messrs Pin and Tulip had served not inconsiderably as a catalyst for their intimacy, to allow them to get closer together, justify sharing a bedroom, sharing these quiet moments, but. _But_. Surely, Vetinari would have _known_.

They’ve discussed religion before, Vetinari _knows_ , he readily recalls: he had told Drumknott about being a boy, seeing the salmon and the otter, explaining his childhood revelation; he had spoken, time and time again, on his distaste for the idea of a higher power governing one’s actions… Drumknott had read his _thesis_ , even, that Vetinari had written when he was pursuing his doctorate in God Studies, on the nature of defining one’s morality on the whims of gods.

“Me?” Drumknott asks, and he met Vetinari’s gaze, his expression deceptively innocent.

“I didn’t know,” Vetinari says. He is aware of the tension in his voice, the hardness of his tone.

“No,” Drumknott agrees, in that curiously bland way he has when he knows Vetinari is irritated with him, and pretending not to know why. “I never mentioned it.” Vetinari stares down at him as he sets about pouring two mugs of tea, the soft trickle of the liquid, ordinarily a soothing sound, serving only to irritate Vetinari further.

“You place your faith in Blind Io, then?” Vetinari asks softly, his voice sharp.

“Where else would I place it?” Drumknott asks, arching an eyebrow.

 _In me_ , Vetinari wants to say. “In the city,” he says, which means the same thing.

“The city does not need my faith,” Drumknott says. He raises his chin slightly as he turns to face Vetinari, and he isn’t stepping back in this moment, isn’t giving way to Vetinari. They stand almost as equals, and Vetinari is furious to realize that, on some level, he’s _pleased_ that Drumknott should face him down in this way, as he had the first time. “To have faith is to trust blindly. I don’t trust the city _blindly_ , and in the event it needs correcting, I will correct it.”

“ _Will_ you?” Vetinari asks, leaning in closer, and Drumknott keeps his gaze levelly, unflinching. Vetinari recalls, vividly, when Drumknott gave him his week’s notice, that first year, when he declared he would resign over allowing Vetinari to focus more on _him_ than on their respective duties, and how overwhelmed he had been in the moment, how full to the brim with _passion_. Now, the assurance of Drumknott’s keen willingness to amend his course serves only to irritate him, because—

A god? _Really?_

He places his faith, his higher belief, in a figure like _that_ —

“I have before,” Drumknott says, reaching out and slightly straightening the collar of Vetinari’s dressing gown, which is already perfectly straight. “I would again.” Setting the necklace down, Vetinari’s hand whips out, and Drumknott dodges him, ducks his grip, but Vetinari moves with the other, so that he grasps at Drumknott’s hair and wrenches him closer. Drumknott lets out a sharp gasp of pain, but he doesn’t try to pull away: instead, his hands land on Vetinari’s hips to steady himself, because he’s on his toes to keep Vetinari’s grip from dragging too much at his scalp.

His hair is soft like this, and it naturally falls into curls before he combs it with brilliantine. He looks up at Vetinari with quiet defiance writ across his features, and Vetinari is torn between shoving him away, or pulling him closer.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Vetinari asks, although he knows the answer.

“Because I knew it would upset you,” Drumknott answers, although he knows he doesn’t need to. After a moment, he leans in closer, and he winds his arms around Vetinari’s waist, pressing his face against his breast, his nose cool against the skin bared by his dressing gown, and Vetinari loosens the grip he has on Drumknott’s hair, curling gently in the locks. His fingers play a silent apology over the back of his head, and yet still the anger burns deep in the pit of his belly, the _indignation_.

“Is there anything else you haven’t told me?” Vetinari asks, his voice terse, and quiet against the side of Drumknott’s temple.

“Of course,” Drumknott says. He exhales against Vetinari’s neck, soft breath rushing over Vetinari’s skin.

“Do you pray?”

“Sometimes.”

“What do you pray for?”

“For the most part? More of this.”

“You needn’t pray for that,” Vetinari says derisively, but Drumknott doesn’t stiffen. “You can _ask_.”

Drumknott laughs. It’s a soft, quiet sound, and Vetinari feels his lips drag over his collarbone, settling a kiss on the skin. “Sir,” he says, “it isn’t always up to you to decide.”

He’s right, of course. It isn’t. There are things beyond Vetinari’s power to do, beyond Drumknott’s: the have duties to consider, have things they must do above all else, have responsibilities… There is a reason, up to now, they _hadn’t_ become this intimate, and yet the fact of their powerlessness, the fact of an intimacy that, at its core, must be kept secret, grates on him. It grates on him ever more because he knows it grates on _Drumknott_ , that it hurts him where he will not let it show.

“And you want a god to decide instead?”

“I want,” Drumknott says softly, “a few moments, every day, where I can be selfish. Before the gaze of Blind Io, I am not your clerk, not _a_ clerk, or a citizen of Ankh-Morpork, or a grocer’s son, or anything at all. I’m just… another soul in the temple. I doubt even my name factors into it, beneath a divine gaze: only the force of my belief, my worship, _me_.”

Vetinari draws Drumknott’s head back, so that he can look at his face, at his soft gaze, at his slight smile. “I never thought,” Vetinari says softly, his thumbs playing over Drumknott’s cheeks, “that selfishness was in your nature.”

“It isn’t,” Drumknott replies, with a self-deprecating smile. “But I try my best.”

Vetinari leans down, and he kisses him. He dislikes the sensation of Drumknott’s lips on his own, the wetness of his mouth, of his tongue, the lingering peppermint taste from his mouthwash, but he kisses him anyway, feels Drumknott melt against him, feels his body relax even further.

He knows he oughtn’t use it this way, that he oughtn’t kiss Drumknott merely to end a conversation, or to distract him, he _knows_ —

But Drumknott must, he is aware, know _why_ he does it, and he has yet to ever complain.

“Sit down,” Drumknott says when they draw apart, his thumb playing over Vetinari’s jaw, dragging through the stubble accumulating on his cheeks. “I’ll get the razor.”

“Should I trust you with a razor to my face?” Vetinari asks softly, his tone full of quiet challenge. It’s petty: he _knows_ it’s petty. He says it anyway. “You won’t _sacrifice_ me to Blind Io?”

Drumknott smiles, unbothered. Vetinari’s irritation wrestles with his affection, and loses the match. “He wouldn’t want you,” Drumknott says sweetly, and he turns to fetch the razor and lather.

 

[1] Up until this point, his gifts had comprised of small items of clothing, books, and stationery.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for one homophobic slur.

The first time he knew there was _something_ , he was ten.

He was sitting outside the Unseen University Library, sipping at a cup of sweet tea, scented with flowers[1]. It was a very hot day, the summer sun not quite reaching the desperate levels of heat it would as the summer went onward, but still more than hot enough. He was sitting quietly beside the Librarian, who had once been a very pleasant man named Horace Worblehat, and was now an orangutan.

Young Drumknott had grown used to this.

The man who stepped down the path was from one of the supply shops in Sator Square, and he’d been called up to meet the Archchancellor. It had obviously been an upsetting meeting, because he looked hot, his skin glistening with sweat, and Drumknott watched as he dragged his shirt over his head, throwing it over one shoulder.

He was a beefy man, used to hauling crates of coal and wood upon his shoulders, and Drumknott stared for a long moment at the expanse of his chest and his belly, at the thick muscle in his arms.

He felt hot, and dizzy, and for some reason, ashamed, so he looked very intently into his teacup.

“Ook?” the Librarian asked.

“No, thank you,” Drumknott answered, not looking at the man as he sauntered back down the path, and not looking at the Librarian himself, offering a plate of sandwiches. “I’m not hungry.”

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

The first time he knew he was different, he was twelve.

It was a cool day in February, and this was their lunch hour. Drumknott was eating quietly, although the other boys insisted on making conversation with him. They often did, regardless of how plain it was that he didn’t care for their chatter.

“Why don’t you board with us?” asked Smelt Kipper, a blond boy with floppy hair and freckles on his nose. He was a very excitable thing, Drumknott thought, with no small amount of disapproval, and often entertained himself, running back and forth, kicking up a fuss about almost nothing. “Your scholarship does include boarding, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Drumknott said softly. “Merely that I have responsibilities at home, at the grocer’s.”

Graham Shed, a boy with dark hair and brilliantly white teeth, leaned forward, across the table. He was one of the oldest in their year, but had taken his thirteenth birthday with quiet grace, and he had a very dangerous way about him, one that made Drumknott’s stomach twist in his belly, and made his skin feel hot and tight under his clothes.

Graham Shed was the sort of boy that told other boys what to do, and smiled when they listened, but never actually involved himself in their activities. He’d just watch, and smile, and go without punishment when they got caught.

“ _You_ , Drumknott,” Shed said in a slow, deliberate voice, pointing at him with his fork, “talk like an old man.”

“Well,” Drumknott replied dryly. “They do say you are what you eat.”

The other boys laugh and snicker, louder than he’d expected them to, and Drumknott hesitated as Shed raised his eyebrows, his lips quirking up at their edges. He had very soft-looking lips – Drumknott remembered them even years later, as they filled out. Shed always had lips like cherries, and he remembered them, even as the rest of his face faded to a blur.

“I don’t think that sounded like you meant it to sound,” Shed murmured.

“How does it sound?” Drumknott demanded, feeling the creeping heat burn as it drew up the back of his neck, glowing from his cheeks.

“It sounds like a _sex thing_ ,” said Kipper, laughing. “And you can’t have sex with a _man_.”

“Let alone an _old_ one,” Shed said.

 _Can’t you?_ Drumknott almost asked, before he stopped himself. He’d heard the other boys talking about sex, and he _himself_ had read about it, had even examined some of the more explicit volumes in the Library, wherein adult supervision was sorely lacking. He was accustomed to his fellow students at Linkston Academy being uneducated on some matters, or being… Not _sensible_.

But they sounded so _certain_ , like it was obvious. Couldn’t you? Couldn’t men touch other men, want other men, kiss other men, have _sex_ with other men? He had simply assumed…  They were all laughing.

They laughed as if it was so _ridiculous_.

“I don’t want to have sex with anyone,” Drumknott said. “No one at all.”

“You will,” Shed said, with confidence.

Drumknott sipped at his tea.

It was too hot: it burned his tongue.

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

The first time he knew it really _mattered_ , he was fourteen.

“You may kiss me, if you like,” Marie Vesten said charitably.

They had been speaking for thirty minutes, now: Marie had approached him as he had been waiting for the line for the toffee apples to go down somewhat, idly reading his book, and making polite conversation. They were walking together, and he had been rather perplexed at a girl in Assassins’ Guild uniform coming over to speak with him for much of the time, but now…

Marie Vesten was the sort of well-bred young girl that seemed to feel that speaking with her was quite the privilege, and that one ought take advantage of the opportunity if she felt like bestowing it upon you. Drumknott, thus far, was not a fan. She talked a lot, and Drumknott had been listening politely, but…

There hadn’t yet been an opportunity to get away with her.

One did not seem forthcoming.

“Oh,” Drumknott said. “Ah… Thank you, Marie, for the offer, but I think not.”

Marie raised her chin slightly, giving him a scowl. They were standing near to the apple bobbing barrels, and Drumknott looked over them in some disgust. He liked apples well enough, but not enough to throw his face into a bowl of water and grab for one with his teeth – particularly not one that had likely already been tongued and bitten at by a dozen mouths before your own.

It was _unhygienic_.

“Why not?” Marie asked. She was a tall girl, taller than Drumknott, with a willowy strength to her body, and Drumknott could see the dagger in the holster at her thigh, underneath a skirt that had been hiked up somewhat above, Drumknott suspected, regulation length. He did not point out the blade or the skirt length. Neither seemed appropriate to comment upon.

“I hardly think it proper,” Drumknott said. “We’ve only just met, after all.”

“Do you think I’m pretty?” Marie demanded.

“Of course,” Drumknott said, and when she stared at him, he added hurriedly, “You’ve got very nice, er…” By _Io_ , what was meant to be attractive about women? He’d heard the other boys at the Academy talk about them, especially after lights out, when everyone was in bed, but… “Lovely hair,” he said, somewhat lamely.

“Fine,” Marie said, crossing her arms tightly over her chest as they approached one of the barrels. “Shall we give it a try?”

“Oh, no,” Drumknott said. “I don’t like apple bobbing.”

“You don’t like _anything_ , seems like,” Marie muttered.

“I like things,” Drumknott protested.

“Just not girls or kissing or apple bobbing?”

“Not at all,” Drumknott said. “I’m sure I’d—”

She grabbed him by the hair, and he choked on water as his face was pressed into the barrel, his knees hitting the floor. He struggled for a moment, trying to grab at her hip, her leg, to get her to let him go, but she wouldn’t, so he grasped for the dagger in its holster – if he moved quickly, he could—

He gasped in a breath, falling back onto his hands as Marie was dragged away from him, and he looked up at the face of Lord Downey, one of the Asssassins’ Guild schoolmasters.

Drumknott coughed, hard.

“ _Faggot_ ,” Marie spat, and Drumknott leaned back, the word hitting him like a slap in the face, his lips parting as he stared at her. He felt the cold water dripping down the back of his neck, into his clothes, and he almost wished he hadn’t come to the fair at all – all he’d wanted was one of the stupid _toffee apples_ , and to listen to all the cheer and music, that was all, that was _all_.  

“Miss Vesten,” he said hoarsely, breathing heavily, “you are _very_ impolite.”

“I believe I agree,” Lord Downey said darkly, and Drumknott didn’t hear what he said as they walked away, Downey leaning down to talk into Marie’s ear.

He got to his feet, and awkwardly brushed himself off. No one had noticed them, except Downey.

He’d been very lucky, he supposed. He didn’t feel lucky.

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

**The first time he kissed another man, he was seventeen, and it was a _revelation._**

**A handful of women had tried to kiss him in his lifetime, mistaking his politeness or his tendency to quietly listen to someone else talk as _shyness_ , or attraction. Once or twice, they had dragged him into cupboards or alcoves, trying to wrap their arms around his neck, trying to touch him.**

**Each time, he grasped them firmly by the hips, and pushed them neatly aside, before getting on with the business of the day.**

**He wasn’t going to push this one away.**

**Flyer Kytes was another clerk, and he led Drumknott with confidence into an alleyway outside of the Guild of Clerks and Secretaries. When _he_ kissed Drumknott, the world felt right and proper, like the very Disc was turning on an axis, and Drumknott gasped against his mouth, kissed him back. He was clumsy and desperate and eager, but so was Flyer Kytes, and they kissed and kissed and _kissed_ , until Drumknott felt dizzy with it, until he felt he would faint—**

**And then Flyer Kytes drew away, with a little grin on his face, and waved Drumknott goodbye before he ran off to work.**

**Yes.**

**Yes, that was…**

**That was something.**

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

The first time he loved, it ached.

The first time he loved, it was _agony_.

The first time he loved was the last time, too.

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

“I,” Drumknott said, and Vetinari looked down at him quizzically, even as his hands came up to cup his cheeks, his hands so warm. It had been awful, the past few weeks: Vetinari had been struck down by some stupid scheme from one of the more idiotic members of the UU student body, and had been in the Infirmary for days on end.

Now, they were _home_ , back in the Patrician’s Palace, the door of Vetinari’s bedroom closed behind them, and Drumknott could scarcely stop himself from burying his face in the Patrician’s chest, wrapping his arms tightly around his narrow waist.

“Oh,” Vetinari said softly. “It’s alright, Rufus, it’s alright: I’m here, I’m quite safe.”

“I know,” Drumknott said, and he grasped tightly at Vetinari’s robe, pressing closer to him. “I…” _I love you_ , he wanted to say. He didn’t know how: his mouth would not form around the traitorous words. He could scarcely bring himself to say his lordship’s _name_ : to confess love, he couldn’t, he couldn’t… “I prayed for you.”

There was a tense silence.

Drumknott waited for the retort, the angry response. That would be easier, he thought, that the desperate feeling he felt, the tangled mess of emotion in his chest, the want to drag the Patrician into his bed and cling to him there, forever, forever and ever and—

“Thank you,” Vetinari said softly. “That must have been… _difficult_.”

“You hate religion,” Drumknott said, slightly awkwardly, still itching for Vetinari to fight with him, to bite at him.

“Perhaps so,” Vetinari replied. “But I don’t hate you. And your religion is… _important_ , to you. If you prayed for me, it’s a sign of care. Of… love.”

Drumknott let out a desperate, ugly noise, and he fell to his knees on the hardwood planks of the bedroom floor. Immediately, Vetinari grasped at his arms, drawing him over to the bed and laying him down, clutching Drumknott in his lap, and Drumknott shuddered as he tried not to cry, as he tried to measure himself—

And then Vetinari kissed him. It was a gentle movement, just Vetinari’s lips brushing against his own, chaste and soft.

Drumknott wept, and Vetinari held him.

No words passed between them.

None were needed.

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

Later, Drumknott straddled Vetinari’s hips, his face buried against the hard panel of Vetinari’s chest. Vetinari had made him wash his hair, to remove the unguent he wore in it, and was now dragging his fingers pleasantly through the half-dry locks.

“When did you first know?” Drumknott asked, mumbled. “That you liked men?”

“I was only a young man,” Vetinari said. “I saw two men fencing – friends of Madam’s, I believe. There was something in that. It… called to me, spoke to me. I stayed awake at night thinking about it, until I had decided that I liked men as other boys liked women. Yourself?”

“There were little moments,” Drumknott said. “Small revelations.”

“Tell me?” Vetinari asked, his voice low and quiet… It was a lover’s voice, warm and affectionate. Drumknott’s stomach twisted, not at all unpleasantly, and he wriggled in his place, trying to press himself closer.

He told him.

Vetinari listened.

 

 

[1] It was good, he was reliably informed by his aunt, a witch, for bone development.

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up [on Dreamwidth](https://dictionarywrites.dreamwidth.org/2287.html). Requests always open. Please hit me up on Dreamwidth or Discord if you'd like to talk more about this ship, honestly - I'm really excited about it and would love to find some other shippers. 
> 
> I run a [Discworld Comm](https://onthedisc.dreamwidth.org/), and there's also [a Discord right here.](https://discord.gg/b8Z3ThH)


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